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Command Query Separation in TextUML

Ever heard of Command Query Separation? It was introduced by Bertrand Meyer and implemented in Eiffel. But I will let Martin Fowler explain:

The term ‘command query separation’ was coined by Bertrand Meyer in his book “Object Oriented Software Construction” – a book that is one of the most influential OO books during the early days of OO. [...]

The fundamental idea is that we should divide an object’s methods into two sharply separated categories:

Queries: Return a result and do not change the observable state of the system (are free of side effects).

Commands: Change the state of a system but do not return a value.

Query operations in UML

UML too allows an operation to be marked as a query. The section on Operations in the UML specification states:

If the isQuery property is true, an invocation of the Operation shall not modify the state of the instance or any other element in the model.

Query operations in TextUML

The next release of TextUML (which runs in Cloudfier today) will start exposing the ability to mark an operation as a query operation. Being just a notation for UML, the same definition of the UML spec applies to TextUML operations marked as queries.

But how do you mark an operation as a query in TextUML, you ask? You use the query keyword instead of the usual operation keyword (it is not just a modifier, it is a replacement for the usual keyword):

query totalExpenses(toSum : Expense[*]) : Double;

The TextUML compiler imposes a few rules when it sees a query operation:

it will require the operation to have a return value

it won’t let the operation perform any actions that could have side effects, such as creating or destroying objects, writing properties or linking objects, or invoke any other non-query operations

also, it will only let you invoke operations from a property derivation if they are query operations

But why is Command Query Separation a good thing?

By allowing a modeler/programmer to explicitly state whether an operation has side effects allows a compiler or runtime to take advantage of the guarantee of lack of side effects to do things such as reorder invocations, cache results, safely reissue in case of failure which can improve performance and reliability.